One-pot reductive amination of carbonyl compounds with nitro compounds with CO/H2O as the hydrogen donor over non-noble cobalt catalyst

•The one-pot reductive amination for the synthesis of secondary amines was developed with CO/H2O.•The nitrogen-doped carbon supported Co catalyst was active toward this transformation.•Both nitrogen and Co nanoparticles were important for the transfer hydrogenation.•A plausible mechanism was proposed for this reaction.

The one-pot reductive amination of carbonyl compounds with nitro compounds over heterogeneous non-noble metal catalysts was developed for the first time by transfer hydrogenation with CO/H2O as the hydrogen donor. Nitrogen-doped carbon supported cobalt nanoparticles were observed to be active toward this reaction, affording structurally-diverse secondary amines with high yields. Kinetic studies revealed that the transfer hydrogenation of imines (CN bonds) was the rate-determining step. Reaction mechanism studies indicated that both nitrogen and cobalt nanoparticles were important for the transfer hydrogenation with CO/H2O to generate the proton (NH+) and hydride (CoH−) as the active species. Furthermore, the heterogeneous cobalt catalyst was highly stable without the loss of its catalytic activity during the recycling experiments.

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